Gaia's twist on the M2M approach to smart connectivity is enabled by adding a small wireless module to the existing appliances without any modifications. The embedded wireless module sends appliance data to a smartphone using cloud services for further processing.

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The company said the approach eliminates concerns such as whether appliance electronics come with enough memory or a microcontroller powerful enough to process data. The embedded M2M wireless module and a smartphone can run apps, control the appliance and process data.

A "barrister" app running on a smartphone (demonstrated above) can control a coffee maker to make adjustments, for example, in brewing time while controlling the amount of water used by the coffee maker, depending on a user's preference.